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How To Learn New Skills (FS077)

How do you go about building new skills when you need them but you don’t yet have them?

Maybe you need to learn how to create a blog or podcast. Or maybe you want to get better at design. Maybe you need to do some customer research but you don’t know how. Or maybe you’re trying to write killer articles that get shared and make some serious impact.

I’ve been stuck in that mire before. Too much to learn. Don’t know where to start. Don’t know what to expect.

What I didn’t know then is that there are some stages to learning new skills, and, with a little zooming out and structured question asking, the mire turns to solid ground, next steps and progress.

Whatever you’re trying to get better at, click play on this episode. We’ll help you dissect and discover the next steps by sharing specific stories (Barrett’s coaching story is worth the price of admission) and then a process for learning a new skill starting from ground zero.

Listen to the episode:

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Some Bits In This Episode:

Let’s talk about skill building and what that looks like, specifically in the context of somebody who needs to get better at something and grow expertise over time.

It can be so hard because we say to ourselves, “no I just want a business!” Well, you’ve got, like, 3 years of work to get really good at your topic. That may need to happen BEFORE you can put a dent in your business.

You’re gonna save yourself a whole mess of time and disappointment if you just commit to a couple years to grow expertise.

Chase thinks ENTHUSIASTS make better bloggers than EXPERTS. But this needs some discussion.

“The way to succeed in a startup is not to be an expert on startups, but to be an expert on your users and the problem you’re solving for them.” ~ Paul Graham (10 min in)

Brain pickings, Daring Fireball, Kottke.org and other BIG blogs are curated by curious, enthusiastic people… not necessarily experts (and certainly when they started they weren’t).

“I found people who had done what I wanted to do, they shared resources, then I dove into those resources and put the hours in and saw what worked and what didn’t.” ~ Barrett

Notice how wide your aim is. Go for a smaller niche. A thing that has a beginning, middle and end. Blog about Ewok culture instead of Star Wars. Become an expert in plants indigenous to your area, not ALL plants.

Chase’s hand lettering and copying Chvrches story. (37 min)

(lots of great articles and videos in show notes).

“Find the enthusiast in you. What makes you like a 4 year old at an air show? It starts out so bad, but STAY INTERESTED ENOUGH TO KEEP GOING. The Ira Glass quote. You have better TASTE than you’re capable of DOING right now, but stick with it because this is how everyone you admire now got there, by pursuing taste through the delta.” ~ Chase

The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business

Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.

One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.

These conversations have been fascinating, so we compiled a list of the 10 mistakes we hear most often into a nifty lil' guide.

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